Breaking free of the Sedentary Life
Genghis Khan: the Medieval Mongol nomad who took the world by storm, a man who lived on a horse and always moving. …..Hated cities and everything they represented: Ease, comfort, lethargy, death.
Conquering them was a way for him to uphold the superiority of the Mongol nomad way of life. And he did, with city after city bending to his armies.
They hit the world by storm in their conquest. No one could expect the mobility and power that the Mongols possessed, as they took down major cities and toppled some of the greatest civilizations of their time (XiaXia, Tanguts, Khwarazm Shahs, Western Liao, the Abbasids, Song China, and Hungarian Kingdoms)
It makes you wonder, what made people want to embrace sedentarism?
The Mongols certainly make a great case for being able to move.
The least cost of sedentary
With growing food technology, sedentary life is promoted. Look at the contrast between the Western Liao empire. This empire in the 1000s AD, was a mix of sedentary-but-technological-advanced Han Chinese, and nomadic Khitan people. Just look at the types of food these people ate and you see a contrast. Rice and other farmed foods versus meat, dairy, and the essential green tea (which provided nutrients missing from a meat and dairy lifestyle).
We’ve even talked in a previous post how even the advanced Haudenosaunee peoples would relocate to different farming regions. In their time, THAT was sedentary relative to the more nomadic nations that they coexisted with.
Their advancement was consistent with a more sedentary life, meaning more efficient energy use. And they were conquered by empires with larger sedentary populations: the English and French.
The English and French were huge empires in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Powerhouse corporations such as the British, East India Company, ploughed out complex administrative structures to run their military-enforced capitalism.
And with these high power empires came more wealth, safety and the continuous, if not exponential advancements in technology. Industrialization and automation led to less work that is physical.
Is the benefit worth the cost?
In the past six months, I went from working a stocking/warehousing position to a more sedentary office job. In the warehouse, I moved around, climbing up high on ladders and down low on the floor. I’d be helping load and unload trucks full of tables, fixturing, changing carpets. Hell, I’d spend upto an hour in a deep squat, trying to scrape residue off of the floor. And when things got busy, I’d be running around, grabbing product for customers.
For forty hours a week, I was getting varied experience in what are often called the basic human movements: pulling, pushing, hinging, squatting, and carrying.
Now, after saying this, you’ve got to be wondering, is this guy that sedentary that he misses the movement in a warehouse job?
I’m not that sedentary that I miss that job. I have always been that sedentary. So much so that those forty hours were a breathe of fresh air in movement. And I think there are many in the modern works who share that same experience. We’re damn sedentary. Our lives are like that.
Its that crazy, how far the pendulum has moved in the opposite direction.
Its funny to say it like this but people have sacrificed their butts for cost effectiveness. The physically engaged nomad still could use his butt to stabilize and move. He was on his horse or walking and using his body more. Even looking at city life over the last thousands years and you’ll see that people were so much more active. People living in first century Palestine were walking….a lot. And walking in and of itself is incredible in how dynamic it is.
However he had his own problems as well. Hence the need to establish systems (technology) to bring some normalcy to food. Now, we find ourselves on another extreme. Barely any body, with a heavy emphasis on the mind.
In fact, in his book, Move or Die, Tim Sitt, talks about the negative impact of sedentary life and how detrimental it can be. He even shares a look into his personal life and the impact I’d sitting too much.
As a former fat kid, Tim took on a transformative experience in college to become an amateur bodybuilder, even stepping on stage. He also worked as a personal trainer while engaged in his social work/therapy studies.
Then, when he started practising, he was relegated to a desk for long hours, with no change in pace.
He’d still workout but his overall activity levels took a huge dive. He was stiff, tired, and starting to gain weight.
Then one winter, as he rushed to get to his car for work, he saw a dark patch on the driveway. Before he could calibrate the danger, it was too late. His foot landed on ice and momentum flung him smack on his back.
He couldn’t get up.
He was in agony.
It was only until an ambulance was called that he left his driveway.
The pain was relentless.
Tim hobbled to a chiropractor, who coolly stated that it wasn’t so much the fall that made him experience such pain, so much as hiwstiff his back was.
His back was extremely stiff and that made the fall much worse. This pushed Tim on a journey to understand how someone who trained 4–5 hours at the gym, a ‘fit’ person, could experience such pain and stiffness.
He then went on a journey to learn more if the importance of regular movement.
End goal: move and reclaim movement.
Therapist, Katy Bowman, describes this modern sedentary world like the degeneration of movement that happens to orcas in captivity:
Human diseases are repeatedly explained to us in terms of their chemical or genetic makeup; meanwhile we’ve completely ignored the load profile that the function of our body depends on. As far-fetched as this may sound, we, like these floppy-finned orcas, are animals in captivity, and our tissues are not suited to the loads created through the way we move in our modern habitat.
(Katy relates the lives of Orcas to humans in modern environment.)
We mentioned how the least cost theory created a push for more and more sedentary living. But maybe we’ve gone too far. How much anxiety and brain fog do we experience because of pushing too far into sedentary living?
How many of us are living in the twilight zone of delusion by being ‘active-sedentary’? We train on gyms for a few hours a week, but we’re not really physical.
It doesn’t take much to break this cycle. Tim advocates regular movement breaks (as little as getting up and stretching) to reinvigorate your body and mind.
The point is, we’ve got to move and move well. And if you’re body feels really jammed up, maybe it means seeing a therapist.
Taking the advice of Tim into an office environment
I break up sitting at work with quick burst of movement:
- Pushups
- Planks
- Cossack squat
- Sitting in the overhead squat position
- Levator scapula stretch
- And running hills after work/lunch
Doing these movement breaks has helped me experience greater alertness during the day. Often times I don’t even need a second coffee, if I can get some movement.
Strengthening
That doesn’t mean strengthening is not important. I’ve found strengthening the upper back, glutes, and hamstrings and core all help in retaining some vigor. Even though sitting for hours takes a toll.
The front rack position, a stronger back, more mobile hips are just as much built in the gym as they are maintained through regular movement.
Rowing variations, carries, trap work, lower trap work, external rotation, groundwork (can you roll?)
Personally, I’ve taken the advice to train in a variety if rep ranges and movements.
Hamstrings — leg curls, cable pulls through, deadlifts (any variation),
Upper back — carries, Blackburn’s angled rowing, scarecrows, face pulls,
Lats — pull Downs, rows,
Butt — extensions, jumps, sprints,
Calves — calf raises, jumping rope, jumping
Take on some physical work or hobby
If you can manage, I’ve find having a physical hobby (woodwork, plein air painting, blacksmith, carpentry, fighting, dance etc) injects more physicality into your week. Hell I’ve even considered getting a plumbing certificate and doing that part time, just to be more mobile.
Having a creative, physical outlet can do wonders for some of the ailments of let ng hours if being stationary. Who knows, it might bring your next big idea as well.
Taking back the physicality of those before us
Regardless of whether you need to move more or get stronger, modern life gives a chance to think about the cost of not being able to move as much.
We know the consequences of lack if movement. The businesses and institutions that we give up our activity for even know this, as they strive to become more ‘agile’ and ‘mobile’. Why deprive ourselves from that optimal positioning?
